another horoscope...

i like reading my horoscope. i don't plan my day by it, but i find it sometimes inspirational.

home sick today, i found myself staring out the window contemplating this particular horoscope. i have no idea what it means, but it got me thinking about the goals i had for 2011. i know better than to sit around hoping that the big change i want to happen will just fall in my lap. that's why it hasn't happened yet. i've not been on my game and i've been half-assing it.

instead of watching horrible weekday tv, i sat with a notebook and doodled a plan. i've mapped out my winter, and come spring, i hope to emerge from my den significantly closer to achieving my goal. (a goal is a dream with a deadline--a fortune cookie once told me.)

it's amazing how fast hours... days....weeks pass--time gets away from me. i said at the beginning of this year that this would be the year i turned the corner and made misfit hue my primary job. well, it wasn't. i was distracted with a whole mess of personal crap. i feel stronger now, but it was an exhausting year and i'm still easily distracted by shining things.

is there nothing left to do but accept this year as a failure? it wasn't exactly failure... it just wasn't what i had intended. the lessons i learned weren't the ones that i had hoped i would.

but, i'm not giving up. baby steps up the mountain--and i'm NOT looking back.

"To understand the shift occurring today, you must look at events from a lofty perspective. A slow liberation process is gathering momentum. Over the next few months you won't refuse an opportunity to rid yourself of an oppressive part of your past. You'll shed your old complexes and emerge renewed. Don't be alarmed if family relations suffer a bit. The distress is only temporary."

well, color me happy!

"Welcome to Hollywood! What's your dream? Everybody comes here; this is Hollywood, land of dreams. Some dreams come true, some don't; but keep on dreamin' - this is Hollywood. Always time to dream, so keep on dreamin'."


my movie: pretty woman.


ahhh, chick flick, you may say. yeah. big time. i know. 


to me, it is much more. i see the person i strive to be--who gets what she wants by being herself.


nahhhh, not cinder-fuckin-rella, as Kit would say. 


i see a much bigger and different message. the outside of the movie is cinderella. bad girl makes good. prince whisks her off to the chartered plane bliss. 


that's not what i see and it isn't what i want.


i had a conversation the other day that got me thinking about what i do want from a relationship and i thought about Julia Roberts using a safety pin to hook up her boots and offering a buffet of various condoms. that's me. "I'm a safety girl." :) i could quote this movie till i drive you crazy. so, i'll stop now. 


back to the conversation and my connection to hollywood. i dig chick flicks. i'm a pathetic, hopeless romantic. utterly lost to it. i get weepy over everything, and if a man can't tear up at the end of breakfast at tiffany's well, hell, that's just cold.


but, this is about about miss vivian and edward. what i love about their story is that she wasn't looking for him. he was work. she had her own thing. it was bedraggled and dangerous and one rent payment away from falling apart, but it was hers. he wasn't looking for her either, but together, they were a little better for knowing each other--a real give and take. and let's face it, that scene on the piano? that's just stupid hot.


she had dreams of her own. she'd seen them fall apart. she knew her weaknesses and strengths. she had a bit of a plan. she hadn't given up. she was strong and smart and sexy. and, damn it, she wasn't crying in her vodka over her losses. 


i want to be her. i am my own personal version of her. my crazy, quilt work life is like hers... minus the pimps and johns. but, dude, i've been right there on the edge. i haven't and i won't give up. 


i also like that despite her line of work and what the ladies in the clothes shop thought of her, she had class. she could do anything and she was willing to work to get it--but she NEVER stopped being vivian. i love the character's flexibility and how she embraces change and growth. dress her any way you like, giveth and taketh away... she is still vivian. 


and she tells edward what she wants. no games. she is always honest with him. she allows herself to get hurt. 


and most importantly, she doesn't settle or compromise her values. she walks away.she takes what she has learned and earned and walks away.


i'm sorry, but that is a valuable lesson. 


and what about edward? well, he's all that and a bag of chips. we are talking about richard gere here... but he listens to her and opens up to her. he doesn't judge her or dismiss her. instead, he gives her some guide posts to his new and different world. he's broken, just like her--just like all of us. he's a force to be reckoned with, a man who knows himself, but who knows there is more and is willing to try... still willing to take risks.


imagine that, two adults.


of course, it's hollywood, so there is a happy ending. i'm okay with it though because there is one more little lesson that i think sealed the deal for me.


edward climbs that fire escape to "rescue" the princess, and when he does,  he asks what happens now?


she says, "she rescues him right back."


amen, sister! everybody deserves to be rescued and it feels just as good to do the rescuing as it does to be rescued.


so, is it a chick flick? oh def, and i'm crying like a baby at the end.. every single time.


but, it's not a fairy tale to be a strong, independent woman who is caring, beautiful and willing to take risks to get what she wants.


dude, that's me.


http://youtu.be/LGPbvOirz8I

miss clara

i recently had the pleasure of an afternoon photographing miss clara... such a sweetheart!

the angel in the house is a codependent...

the angel in the house will insist you eat the last piece of pie even if she is starving.

there is good hospitality and then there is straight-up unhealthy behavior.

more than ten years ago, i spent a bit of time studying virginia woolf. what caught my attention was her piece "a room of one's own". i was struck by the thought of killing off the angel in the house, the perfect, pious, submissive wife and mother.

i also studied kate chopin and charlotte perkins gilman, two more women who put this ridiculous ideal under a microscope and released that perfect victorian angel to the world to find freedom.

when i ran across a room of one's own, i was enchanted with woolf's discussion of women as writers and her description of what may have happened if shakespeare had a sister, and it was she instead of him, who had the inspiration to write those magnificent plays, the outcome would have most likely been a tragic loss.

between that and the suggestion that in order to write, a woman needs an income of her own, a room of her own and to first and foremost, kill the angel in the house, i was hooked on the concept. these three writers, woolf, chopin, and gilman, became my personal heroes.

from these pieces was born misfit hue... getting a hue of one's own and killing off the angel in the house one blog post at a time. if you've followed me for even a brief amount of time, you've read or heard me talk on these themes.

but, thank the heavens, learning never ends and there are always new revelations.

it was only recently that i realized why i had an immediate attraction to the characters and themes that these women wrote about. it is their efforts to break the patterns of codependency, their fight to be healthy.

i'm learning that being healthy can be the greatest lifelong endeavor, with chunks of understanding falling into place randomly.

i've never had the language, the full context and understanding of why i've defended these writers so strongly. i always thought it was simply the victorian life--the "hysteria" diagnosed by men. i thought it was the expectation of marriage and being submissive. but, it goes much, much deeper than that. one does not need to be married to be a caretaker, persecutor and victim.

i still don't understand this entirely, but can see much research and reading in my future. it would be nice to return to my roots of literature, to re-evaluate my understandings of it and the reasons certain pieces speak to me.

regardless, one more piece of my own personal understanding has been revealed and more are about to surface.

and now, i know why i really hate the angel in the house.

there is only now...

there is no perfect time, no perfect plan.

a perfect time to fall in love does not exist. a perfect time for a career will not come. the perfect time for children is not a schedule-able event. the perfect time to sit on the porch and stare at the moon is now.

now is the best time to discover and use your talents, to tell someone that they are a most amazing person, to look into a child's eyes and know unconditional love.

a good friend lost his wife and best friend last night. they learned she was sick one week ago.

i don't have children and i know that they say losing a child is unlike any grief i could know.

but i know love. i know the complicated weave of a life with someone who is part of a full and joyful heart.

i have written this many times: life is not a dress rehearsal.

there is only now.

no regrets...

no regrets. absolutely. put it on my headstone, i've lived the dream of my beliefs.

but if i die today, that absolutely is no longer true.

several years ago, i ran into a friend from high school and after talking for a while, she asked, "what happened to you?"

"what do you mean?" i asked.

"you used to take risks and go places... places the rest of us were afraid to go," she said. "you had the balls in the group--no fear. what happened?"

i was shocked. me? what balls?

"i'm terrified of everything," i laughed. "who the hell do you think you're talking to?"

and then she reminded me. she reminded of the stunts i pulled in high school--lots of them that i'd conveniently forgotten. i vaguely remembered this person, but it'd been a long, long time since i took a single risk.

a few years after this conversation, i took a huge risk. i turned my back on everything and struck out on my own.

now this little stunt has had varying degrees of success, but the one thing that has been consistent, has been my growth. i've learned so much about myself, tried new things and popped out a lot of dents. i've worked really, really hard and i'm very proud of who i am today.

i've never forgotten what my friend said to me, and early in this new adventure, i developed a mantra of no regrets. i would do my best and i would live with the consequences whatever they may be, good or bad.

no regrets. those little words are huge. on more than one occasion, i have recited them to give myself strength. i have thanked my conviction for the positive outcomes, and sometimes, i have grit my teeth and chanted those words through tears.

mostly, i've thought things through, sometimes i've gone by instinct, but rarely have i been rash.

so, this is a first. the first time that i can honestly say i truly regret something that i've done. if i could go back in time, i'd do it differently. that was not who i am. i want a redo, but life seems to be fresh out of them this month.

so, here i am in my new life, one that was no easy task to build and one that is not finished by any means. it's full of many wonderful people and experiences and lessons... and now, it also has regret. the only thing i can do is accept it, accept the lesson, regardless of how bitter it may be.

so, i'll look both ways before i cross, and take my risks as they come.
no regrets, my friends. no regrets, save one.

day dreams swept under the rug...

i have a few goals and dreams. i'm no different than anyone in that regard, and i can be ruthlessly practical about them.

i have one dream that i will not divulge, that i can barely even acknowledge in the light of day. it is so unlikely and so close to my heart that if i go after it and it doesn't work... well, it would be the most painful of all the disappointments and brokenhearted moments.

i'm certain that i'm not the only person with a dream like that, and whenever i see someone who is hurt and suffering, i hope that their pain is not from losing that one secret dream.

life is hard and we are not kind enough to each other, in my opinion. i hope that in the scheme of things, i've helped more than i've hurt, and that if i can, i can help someone reach that secret dream.

we all just want to be happy after all.